LOVE – Live at Paris L’Europeen – 27 April 1992
(Arthur Lee, Michael Head, John Head, Martyn Campbell, Johnnie Baxter)
Orange Skies, A House is Not A Motel, And More Again, Stephanie Knows Who, She Comes In Colors, Signed DC, My Little Red Book, Seven And Seven Is, Passing By, The Daily Planet, Your Mind & We Belong Together, Hey Joe
I was there the night Arthur met Shack in Paris in 1992.
I was in the support band for the gig the next night. There was a sound check (to this day I swear they played Butterfly, years before I heard it again) and the rest of my band had sloped off to practice their mumbling and aloofness. I remember the sound man had something to do with the Stone Roses and had got riled when I asked what they were up to. I’d got talking to the shy John and wigged out Michael by saying how much I loved the Pale Fountains then Shack, telling them about gigs at the International 2 and Green Room in Manchester. I was telling their much more accessible manager Andrew the same. Then Arthur arrived.
Arthur had been listening to Shack’s drummer Johnnie Baxter and walked up to them onto the stage to show him what the song should sound like. He could play as well. And it was my drum kit. Then he swapped to guitar and suggested a song, asking if they knew it. Mick and John started playing it. Mr Lee couldn’t stop grinning. It was fantastic. They knew more songs than Arthur had remembered.
I got to sit in an near empty art deco theatre in the centre of Paris shouting out my favourite Love songs and they got played. Whenever Arthur didn’t like something he picked up the instrument and played the part how it should be. Guitar, bass or drums. This went on until they got told to turn the volume down as the police had been round after noise complaints. They simply moved to acoustics and carried on. Name a Love song and they played it. Signed DC was chilling, You Set the Scene and Orange Skies were note perfect. This went on for a good couple of hours to an audience of four. The guy who owned the theatre (Stephane Bismuth), a girl called Hilda, one of her friends and me. They’d immediately bonded on the stage and the gig the next night was stunning.
I was so captivated that the next week when they played the Garage in London I ended up selling t shirts, just to feel a part of it.
It’s my best memory of being in a band, and the only part I ever recount. Whenever anyone mentions Love or Arthur Lee I can stun them into silence by saying ‘I’ve met him’.
– Damien Warburton, April 2010
Photograph by Damien Warburton
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